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Hi everyone just want to pick everyone's brain a little bit,
Do you think the growing mainstream trend of erotic fiction is a product of society's sudden openness to sex or do you think this sudden openness is a product of this new trend??


I personally feel that this new trend actually is what began the openness in society, all of a sudden it is ok to talk about sex and fantasies because someone put them into words in a way that captivated even the most innocent of us.

Yeah, I agree that the trend of erotic fiction spurred from society's openness to talk about sex now, especially the openness of women being able to express themselves about sex.

I think they've been building blocks on each other. One goes a certain distance, then the other surpasses it, and so on and so forth. However, without a doubt, I think 50 Shades of Gray, regardless of anyone's opinion about it, has definitely been the most public and these types of movies will probably become more commonplace because of it.

BookFever wrote:I think they've been building blocks on each other. One goes a certain distance, then the other surpasses it, and so on and so forth. However, without a doubt, I think 50 Shades of Gray, regardless of anyone's opinion about it, has definitely been the most public and these types of movies will probably become more commonplace because of it.

Possibly you are right but hopefully people will see this for the demeaning rubbish it is and move on.

I think that it was a little of both some people were open and started writing so now everyone talks about it, but I think it has gone beyond being open to causing our society to not respect it. For example, I like reading teen novels which are designed for young girls and it will have sexual content like catching Jordan and it is disappointing for me as a reader because it is detracting from the story and also it puts that kind of information in to young girls heads as young as 9 or 10 which is the age when I started reading teen fiction. Anyone else think it has become an obsession in our society rather than helping?

Generations changing, growing up. It was a"right of passage" to being a teen to smoke a joint at one time. Now it seems to have moved more into things like kissing another girl is a right of passage. Is that a silly way of putting it? ...sigh... anyway, a new wave of kids growing up and being more open to things, sex being one of them. I have a question as well. 50 shades was a topic on I think it was Oprah one day. Another romance author said all of the 50 shades books was nothing more than "mommy porn" what exactly does that mean? I don't think I understand that one. ..?

I have nothing against erotic genre in books. The only thing I have against it is how some books still do not favor women toward fighting for their rights at all. What I mean is that there are books today that still deprecate women and tear them from the rights they should be having nowadays. Some people think it's BDSM when in my opinion I think it's actually belittling and dimishing women as human beings.
Regarding everything else, I don't have a problem with it.

I think that women are more open with talking about sex because they have more means of expressing how much they like/dislike it through the erotic fiction.

This is an interesting question and one I'd never considered before, probably because I dislike erotica. I don't necessarily think that erotic fiction (which as a genre is relatively new) is responsible, but I do think it's a contributing factor. People have always discussed sex in some form or other and literature has always been the place in which this is most apparent. If one attempts to trace the beginnings of erotic fiction then it's very possible to see traces of it in the Kama Sutra, which was written thousands of years ago. Though an "educational" text, it discusses sexual positions and ways to make one's lover aroused. Perhaps there's only a short leap from this to erotica generally. I'd say what has changed and made the most difference is a smaller (and ever shrinking) gap between the public and private spheres that has hundreds of years of contributing events and ideologies. Indeed, I don't think "public and private spheres" exist in the same way as they did in, for example, the eighteenth-century.

I think we've become more open and willing to admit reading that kind of book so we buy more of them and so there's a market to find new authors and write more romance/erotica. When I was a kid, mom got romance novels by mail and hid them, sometimes tearing off the covers so no one could see what she was reading or hiding them in all sorts of ways. Even as an adult, she does that. On the other hand, my friends and I will openly chat about erotica books and sometimes pull out non-fiction books to support our opinions. Like this one day when we were arguing about Fifty Shades and first one person pulled up a book on D/s relationships and then someone else started showing us some intricate knots useful in bondage because you can struggle all you want and they hold but with a tug in the right place, they come completely undone. That was completely sober one afternoon by the pool and not an isolated incident at all. Can you imagine our parents or grandparents having those conversations?

I agree with BookFever that 50 Shades has a lot to do with it. Women weren't shy about being out in public reading it even though everyone knew what it was about. It was the first erotic I had ever read. Now, I read it 9 times out of 10 lol It definitely opened me up to new ways of thinking. I was never a prude, but it kind of made me realize that I don't have to be embarrassed about fantasies or what not ya know? Heck, my mom even read it and loved it LOL And she IS a prude! Times are definitely changing!

I think that with society becoming more open to sexuality, it may have ignited more of a fire under the erotica genre. In the last few years I have definitely seen a rise in the popularity of erotica novels. Heck, if you get on Amazon you can get nearly limitless amounts of free erotica novels. I think the only thing that really worries me is how much our youth is being exposed to sexually explicit material at younger ages. While I would want my kiddo to know that sex is okay and a wonderful addition to a relationship, I don't think that he needs to be worrying about it at 8 or 9 years old.

I think the controversy of Fifty Shades of Grey opened it all up a lot because everyone knows that BDSM is involved, so it is going to come up and be discussed at some point which leaves people to grapple with themselves and each other about what their sex boundaries are and then have to defend that position to other people. I was listening to the radio the other day with a hump day dump day program where the radio hosts try and figure out why someone was dumped. It turned out a woman went out with her girlfriends on Valentine's day weekend (first clue there was something wrong), and they dragged her in to see Fifty Shades. She went from wanting nothing to do with it to deciding that her boyfriend was incapable of giving her that kind of excitement in the sack (it is a crazy fantasy, no guy can live up to that), so she dumped her boyfriend to go looking for a dom. There are obviously a lot of problems with that girl's thinking, but clearly it is having an effect and opening people up to new views on sexuality. I personally just wish it was one of the better erotica authors doing it, Stephanie Myers all over again.